


Our Only Lore

by windfallswest



Series: Woods and Waters Wild [17]
Category: Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, M/M, Plot What Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 16:56:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windfallswest/pseuds/windfallswest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little wildly AU canon-repair.</p><p>de Vance Drift: 3517</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Only Lore

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer** : I cannot emphasise enough how much I am not making money off of this. Also, if I owned them, my brain would not have exploded at the end of the last book.

Fitz locked the door behind them with a sense of weight easing from his shoulders. The Fool grabbed one of the bags, and Fitz followed him into the master bedroom. It was lavishly appointed with rich, draping fabrics, bright oil paintings in the bold, simply-lined style of Gaugin-Rylis, and wooden furniture which Fitz's nose informed him had been recently waxed. When he set the rest of the Fool's baggage with the first, his eye was caught by the intricate patterns woven into the carpet, which sometimes developed into figures and sometimes not.

"A step up from your previous accommodations, I hope," bantered the Fool.

Fitz made a show of looking around and shaking his head. "All it's missing is a fireplace."

Lord Golden frowned at the room. "I do believe I requested one. I shall have to have a sharp word with the proprietor on the matter."

Fitz snorted. Then he groaned and threw himself into the four-post bed's voluptuous embrace. _Safe._

He was looking at the Fool, or he might have missed the heated flash in his uncanny eyes, which was almost instantly suppressed. There was warmth and tightness in his belly in response, so that for a moment he had trouble breathing. He felt his grin spread insanely wider.

"Take me," Fitz heard himself say feyly in the spirit of the moment, arms spread wide. "Take me now." But there was too much sincerity in his voice for the jest. Fitz remembered, suddenly, a gentle hand on his face, the touch of soft lips, and the Fool's wild kiss when he'd found him again. His mouth went dry. He flushed abruptly red.

The emotions warring on the Fool's face were, he thought, enough to break his heart. Fitz squeezed his eyes shut on an equal wave of panic.

"Fool," he breathed. The silence was unbearable. He felt absolutely naked under the Fool's scrutinising gaze. _Believe me,_ he prayed, paralysed.

The door clicked shut, sending Fitz's heart pounding even faster. He'd made a monkey-rutting mess of this, like he always did. _Why do I never learn? Why don't I ever think until it's too late?_ he asked himself bitterly. He couldn't believe he'd just done that. He didn't believe he'd just done that. After everything the Fool—

"Beloved," the Fool whispered softly in his ear.

Fitz started. His eyes flew open, and he looked up disbelievingly at the Fool's golden face. He was still the only one Fitz had ever met who could sneak up on him, as though his mind was turned at an angle to the world.

Fitz felt the grin break out again, and he reached up to gather the Fool to him, so they lay as they once had in his room on the Skyplex.

Neither could say who moved first, but the kiss was sweet and long. There followed more, and soon the Fool was on top of him, pinning him with deceptive strength. Fitz felt his blood boiling, melting away his brain.

"Your boots are going to absolutely ruin the bedding," the Fool admonished with breathless exuberance. Fitz blinked up at him uncomprehendingly. The Fool leered outrageously. "I suppose I'll have to take them off."

Elusive as a fish, the Fool slipped though his grip. His long fingers deftly stripped Fitz's feet. He stroked them tantalisingly, tracing tendons, bones, and arches.

Fitz squirmed with the faint tickling sensation. The Fool brushed his thumbs down Fitz's soles one last time and his lips against one of his ankles, before moving back up to Fitz's mouth and a melting string of kisses.

Fitz lay back and watched in dazed amusement as the Fool took an inordinate delight in stripping away the layers of finery he'd decked Fitz in for his role as servant. When Fitz made to help, his hands were batted away with a, _You'll only make a mess of it_ , and another mind-destroying kiss, fingers tangled in a mess of half-done laces.

"Oh, Fitz, what have we done to you?" the Fool asked softly when the skin of Fitz's chest was bared under his touch.

Fitz looked down self-consciously. Niska's marks were beginning to fade; the acid burn on his stomach would stay, but the shallow knife scars might yet disappear entirely. It made his blood run cold to look at the one between his ribs, its mouth closed now on its deathly secret.

There were older scars as well, the tracks of his assassin's life, dagger and bullet. He couldn't see the bite on his neck, but it still pulled.

"You saved me," he reminded the Fool, and caught a flash of sadness in his eyes.

Reaching up, he cupped the Fool's face in his hand. It was much larger now. And gently, gently he kissed him.

Fitz gave the Fool more trouble getting his pants off, reluctant to relinquish his mouth; but it was, he had to concede, a very good idea in the end. Spread naked on the rich covers under the force of the Fool's gaze, he felt like something as glowing and golden as the Fool himself. Blood thundered in his ears as the Fool bent down to kiss him again. Silk and velvet and suede caressed his prickling skin where their bodies pressed together.

"We'll ruin your good clothes, too," Fitz observed breathlessly, sliding his hands suggestively up the Fool's vest, underneath his jacket, which was as close as he could get to skin.

He felt the Fool tense instantly under his hands. Fitz searched out his eyes, but they were looking at something far past his seeing.

After a moment in which Fitz scarcely breathed, he seemed to come back to himself. He smiled wryly at Fitz's concerned look.

"There will be time for questions later."

He wanted a response, so Fitz nodded.

Fast as that, the Fool's hands sent his own elaborate get-up flying. An ensemble it took five slaves, Fitz figured, to get a lord into or out of he managed with an actor's facility. It made Fitz smile.

When he rolled aside to wriggle out of his pants, Fitz caught a glimpse of what might have made him hesitate. A riot of bright colour flashed past his dipped shoulder. Tattoos? It didn't seem like the Fool. Fitz bit his tongue on a question. It could wait.

The Fool was watching him apprehensively. His posture was awkward, stuck between covering his nakedness and concealing his back. Fitz waited, holding his breath. The Fool searched his face with tawny eyes.

All of a sudden, he threw himself back on the splendid covers, laughing. "Oh, what a fine pair of fools we are!"

Fitz leaned closer, feeling his forehead wrinkle with consternation. The Fool lifted his head and promptly collapsed in another fit of giggling.

"You should see your face, Fitz. You look so—so—" He beckoned. "Come over here."

"Are you all right?" Fitz asked, skooching over a bit uncertainly.

The Fool drew him down so they lay face to face. "What fools we are," repeated fondly.

"I thought we agreed that was my name," Fitz teased, starting to relax again. The Fool's arm crept over his waist, and Fitz let his own hand reach out to settle on the Fool's honey-touched skin.

"So we did. Beloved," the Fool said. Then, quietly, "Are you afraid?"

"Terrified," Fitz answered through what must have been the same mad grin the Fool was wearing. Then he crossed the last few inches and kissed the Fool again, even though his mouth was dry and his hands were sweaty, because at that moment there was nothing he could have wanted to do more.

The Fool responded enthusiastically, pulling him closer. His tongue was as acrobatic as the rest of him. The coolness of his hands had Fitz shivering with every caress. Whatever was drawn across his back, the Fool's own skin was smooth and soft. Fitz could feel his tumbler's muscles shifting underneath.

They were pressed length to length now, gasping when their shifting bodies rubbed their erections together. The Fool made delicious little sounds, Fitz discovered. When he switched to nibbling at his ear and down his neck, they coalesced into a low repetition. _Beloved, Beloved, Beloved._

Neither of them were content to let their hands rest. Fitz accepted greedily this opening in the privacy the Fool guarded so closely. Every naked line of his body, each time he arched into Fitz's touch, every caress he gave in return. He pulled Fitz over him, caught him with his eyes and his hand; and Fitz had to hide, first in the passion of the Fool's kiss, and then in the shelter of his shoulder.

He gasped and shuddered out his climax, clinging to the Fool like a hold during depressurisation. The Fool followed him, and his voice was like music. Fitz felt his entire body tremble.

They lay together like that for a time. The Fool didn't complain of the weight. After a while, he felt less like the pieces of himself were scattered like shards from a smashed vase. Looking up, he found the Fool's pale eyes watching him, He felt _safe_.

"Although I infer from your grip that you have no intention of moving, the longer we stay like this, the more painful our eventual separation," the Fool said with a glimpse of his old humour.

Fitz snorted and leaned up to kiss him lightly before rolling off.

"You can go first," he volunteered magnanimously.

The Fool didn't need telling twice. Fitz watched appreciatively as he sat up and stretched.

Oh.

Fitz also had an excellent view of the tattoos they'd both momentarily forgot. They were flames, from deep, warm reds to flaring blue-whites. They writhed when he moved, and there was something like—shapes—in them.

The Fool tensed, reacting to Fitz's surprise. A slow flush crept up his face. Fitz didn't say anything, and neither did the Fool. He found something quite absorbing on the floor to examine and kept on to the washroom, looking almighty embarrassed.

Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

Fitz exhaled a deep, silent breath, staring at the velvet silk canopy overhead until he heard the water switch on. With a sigh, he rolled off the acre-wide bed and stripped the duvet, dragging it to his own—as-yet untouched—servant's room and stuffing it unceremoniously down the laundry chute.

Fitz rinsed off quickly in his quite less elaborate bath and was tucking in a new bedspread with a towel wrapped around his waist when the Fool re-emerged.

The Fool was defiantly naked, his chin set in determination. His tawny hair was meticulously combed. Damp and loose, it hung to his shoulders.

Fitz stood speechless in the face of the Fool's unwonted display. There suddenly seemed to be kilometres of golden skin, and legs, and elbows. Had Fitz ever seen the Fool's elbows before? He was always so careful to keep himself concealed. Finding the wits to meet his eyes, Fitz was suddenly moved by the fragile bravery of the man before him.

Fitz took a step forward, around the corner of the bed, still holding the Fool's gaze. Another step, and he was close enough to reach out and tug the Fool in by his hand. He moved stiffly and a little reluctantly, tensed even more when Fitz touched their foreheads together and gathered him into his arms.

"I love you. Every inch of you," Fitz reassured him, deliberately ghosting a hand across the Fool's inked back. "And when I touch you, I feel skin, not flames."

He kissed the Fool, whose eyes had flinched away as soon as he'd touched the marked skin. They flickered back now, wide and uncertain.

"You kindle in me a wholly different fire," Fitz whispered.

The Fool choked on something that might have been a laugh and gave him a speculative look.

"It still surprises me when you do that."

"Do what?"

"Say exactly the right thing."

Fitz opened his mouth, then closed it.

"Me, too," he said at last.

The Fool smiled a little and kissed him fondly.

Things were easier between them after that. Almost the same, except the Fool would punctuate his words with touches now, or draw a caress across the nearest part of Fitz's anatomy every time he walked by, touching with a self-indulgent delight Fitz couldn't bring himself to mind.

The Fool ordered a veritable feast up to the suite, which Fitz's still undernourished stomach was quite fine with, although it did mean he had to get dressed again.

A look at the re-assembled layers of frippery and Fitz had no compunctions about asking the Fool for help. He didn't reckon quite so much sniggering was necessary, though.

As soon as the door had closed behind the expensively polite fellow heading the convoy from room-service, the Fool popped out from the bedroom, where he'd been remaining discreetly out of sight, and started helping Fitz set things out.

His continued nakedness succeeded in distracting Fitz, not least because for the Fool, it was a most unusual demonstration. Maybe he was trying to make a point, Fitz thought. But to which of them?

They settled on cushions facing each other across a low, ornate wooden table. It was piled high with food. Supplementary trolleys were convenient at either hand.

The Fool shook out his neatly-folded napkin and draped it fastidiously over his lap. A significant glance towards Fitz's finery prompted him to do likewise.

The food was delicious.


End file.
